Con Coughlin

Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence Editor and a world-renowned expert on global security and terrorism issues. He is the author of several critically acclaimed books. His new book, Churchill's First War: Young Winston and the fight against the Taliban, is published by Macmillan in London and Thomas Dunne Books in New York. He appears regularly on radio and television in Britain and America.

If any further proof were needed of the complete state of chaos that currently afflicts Western policy towards the Middle East, it is to be found in the dawning realisation within both the British and American governments that we need Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as an ally, not a foe, if we are to stand any chance of defeating the Islamic State's terrorist army.

Exactly this time last year David Cameron was hurrying back from his annual holiday in Cornwall to lend his support to the Obama administration's plans to bomb the Assad regime in retaliation for its alleged use of chemical weapons on the outskirts of Damascus. One of my main arguments then for opposing the air strikes was that, if the air raids succeeded in overthrowing the Assad regime, there wa… Read More

When Lee Rigby was brutally murdered on the streets on south London, there was a tendency by many people to conclude that this terrible event was a one-off, a despicable criminal act perpetrated by a couple of Islamist fanatics, who were subsequently given life jail sentences.

But the gruesome murder of American journalist James Foley in Iraq, apparently by a British jihadist fighting with the self-proclaimed Islamic State organisation, raises the prospect that we could soon see further acts of appalling violence committed on Britain's – streets unless we succeed in stopping the militants in their tracks in Iraq.

The intelligence and security services have been warning for several months now that the greatest threat to British security is likely to come from British jihadists who have been radicalised… Read More

Isis fighters raise their weapons as they stand on a vehicle mounted with the trademark Jihadists flag in Anbar province. (Photo: AFP/GETTY)

After all the controversy that has raged over our previous military campaign in Iraq, I can fully understand David Cameron's hesitancy about getting involved in another costly intervention in the Middle East.

When the Prime Minister insists that, so far as our attempts to defeat Islamist militants in Iraq are concerned, there will be "no boots on the ground", he is simply reflecting the public mood that, following our recent military entanglements in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the nation does not want to get involved in another foreign war.

Add to this the memories of Mr Cameron's humiliating Commons defeat this time last year when he wanted to bomb the Assad regime in Syria, and… Read More

Three years after US President Barack Obama turned his back on Iraq by ordering the withdrawal of American troops, he now finds himself having to order military intervention against an Iraqi foe that is infinitely more lethal than anything American forces encountered during their troubled campaign in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's overthrow.

In 2011 Mr Obama, who wants to go down in history as the president who ended America's long involvement in Iraq, withdrew US forces arguing that he could not get sufficient safeguards from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that American troops would be immune from prosecution in Iraqi courts if they remained.

I thought this was a pretty lame excuse at the time – Washington could easily have got a deal if it really wanted one – and now we are reaping the appalling consequences of that decision in the form of the Islamic State of… Read More

I know that serving in Her Majesty's Armed Forces can be a risky proposition, but am I the only one who has raised an eyebrow at the revelation that 36,000 former members of the military are seeking compensation for injury?

There have, of course, been far too many of our brave men and women who have suffered horrific injuries fighting for their country in places in Afghanistan, and I would not in any way wish to question the compensation they are due. But so far as I am aware, serious battlefield casualties are well cared for, with specialist centres like Headley Court perfectly equipped to care for the badly injured and set them on the path to rehabilitation.

But the numbers of those suffering serious battlefield injuries in the past year amounts to a few hundred, if that; not thousands. So where do the 36,000 who are kicking… Read More

You only have to look at today's defence select committee report to see why Vladimir Putin feels under no pressure whatsoever to rein in his intervention in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have now been accused of shelling a Ukrainian border post.

It is not just that Nato is militarily ill-equipped to deal with the challenge posed by the Kremlin's wanton violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity. Russia's Tsar-like leader is also more than aware that the overwhelming majority of Nato's leaders simply do not have the stomach for any kind of military confrontation with Moscow over Ukraine.

As I have written before, Nato's approach to the crisis in Ukraine was summed up perfectly by its head of operations who, when asked how Nato might respond to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in the spring, replied… Read More

The Russians need to tread very carefully over their threat to seize the assets of British companies in Russia. This is the kind of action that is guaranteed to turn a country into an international pariah, one that is shunned by the international community and isolated from the norms of diplomatic contact.

Iran's international isolation, you will remember, began when the Revolutionary Guards overran the American Embassy in Tehran in the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian revolution, and then proceeded to hold 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage for 444 days. To the best of my knowledge no one was killed during that incident, but this violent violation of American interests confirmed the Iranian regime's status as an international outcast, a status it still enjoys to this day.

Apartheid South Africa suffered a similar fate for nearly 30 years over its refusal to end its policy of institutionalised racism… Read More

To judge by the conflicting reports coming from rebel Ukrainian leaders on the issue of whether they have access to the powerful Buk anti-aircraft missile system – believed to have brought down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 – it is clear that Putin's proxies are nothing more than an undisciplined rabble.

In an interview with Reuters, Alexander Khodakovsky, the commander of the rebels' Vostok Battalion, said that the rebels did possess this type of missile system. He even admitted that it could now have been sent back to Russia in order to remove any evidence of its presence in rebel-held territory.

But in another interview with the BBC, Alexander Borodai, the self-styled prime minister of rebel-held Donetsk, insists that there were no Buks in the area at the time the attack took place. "No, we didn't get a Buk. There were no Buks in the area," he stated bluntly.

Radoslaw Sikorski and Philip Hammond chat prior to the start of a Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels (Photo: EPA)

It is hard to believe that after more than a hundred European citizens have perished as a result of a Russian-made missile being fired at an aircraft, European leaders still cannot wake up to the fact that they have a responsibility to act on their behalf, and make sure no such atrocity as the Malaysia Airlines crash happens again.

Yet to judge by yesterday's meeting of European foreign ministers, it's as though last week's disaster in eastern Ukraine never happened. Impose meaningful sanctions against Moscow in retaliation? Not on our watch.

There's only one word to describe yesterday's response by EU ministers to Washington's request for tighter sanctions against Moscow: pathetic.

As Israel's military offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza enters its 15th day, it is clear that, in strictly military terms, Israeli commanders are slowly achieving their objectives. The home-built Iron Dome anti-missile system has done a brilliant job at protecting Israel's civilian population from the thousands of rockets Hamas has fired indiscriminately at Israeli residential neighbourhoods and, while the 27 Israeli combat deaths might seem high to many Israelis, most will understand that it is the price they have to pay to protect themselves from Hamas's murderous intent.

But as so often happens when a Western power gets the upper hand in a conflict, it is clear, to judge by the overall media coverage of the conflict, that Israel is losing the propaganda war. Night after night, the primary focus of the television cameras are the hospitals and the young Palestinian victims. There are few shots of the… Read More